M Carling Problems in the Libertarian Party
I attended the April 2-3, 2016 meeting of the California Libertarian Party
in Los Angeles as a delegate from San Francisco. I am a former Secretary of
the San Francisco Libertarian Party as I have been residing in San Rafael
and Novato California and recently I have moved to Oakland. I also have a
residence in Bronx New York as my publishing company, Ishi Press, is
headquartered here.
At the Los Angeles meeting, M Carling was present. Libertarians around the
country are familiar with M Carling as he has been going around the country
from state to state attending Libertarian Party meetings.
However, when M Carling was nominated to be a member of the California
State Committee and he made a speech in support of his own candidacy, I
rose to ask him the following questions:
What is the real name of M Carling?
Where do you really reside?
Where are you registered to vote?
How many different State Libertarian Parties are you a member of or hold
office in or run for office in.
I pointed out that there have been problems associated with M Carling in
the Oregon Libertarian Party and the New York Libertarian Party. M Carling
often claims to reside in either Latvia or Lithuania. M Carling most
recently has claimed to teach law in India. M Carling always attends the
national conventions and usually gets himself appointed to a position of
authority such as counting the ballots or making Parliamentary rulings. We
have a right to wonder how he has time to teach law in India while hopping
from state to state attending Libertarian Party meetings. We also have a
right to wonder why the Indians do not have somebody in their own country
to teach him their own laws, rather than bringing in M Carlin to teach the
Indians their own laws of India.
In response, M Carling showed the chairman of the meeting what appeared to
be a passport card. A passport card of the United States is only good for
travel to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda at land borders and sea
crossings. It is not good for international air travel. I did not get to
see the card. I find it extremely unlikely that Latvia, Lithuania or India
would give a visa to some body with a name like M Carling only. He insists
that his first name is simply the letter M and he has no other name other
than Carling.
The result of the election for California State Committee was that M
Carling finished dead last. Not only did he finish last but he got only
half the votes of the person who finished next to laws. M Carling got only
14 votes out of about 68 votes cast. The person who finished next to last
got 28 votes.
M Carling then ran for California Libertarian Party Judicial Committee. He
finished last in that election too and was not elected.
I like to think it was my outburst against M Carling that caused him to
lose both elections. However, several people at the meeting afterwards came
up to me and thanked me for what I said, but also told me that he would not
have been elected anyway as many of those present at the meeting are
familiar with what M Carling has been doing in other states especially
Oregon which has split into two parties in large part because of M Carling
and very few would have voted for M Carling even if I had not spoken.
In his speech asking to be elected to the California State Committee, M
Carling had made an impassioned emotional speech saying he should be
elected because “I live here. The Libertarian Party is my own party” while
pointing at his own heart.
After the meeting was over, Richard Wingar informed me that M Carling
actually lives in Washington State. So, he does not reside in any of the
states where he runs for Libertarian Party political office.
I must explain that I have some history with M Carling. At the 2006 Annual
Convention of the New York Libertarian Party at which William Weld received
the nomination to be Governor of New York State, M Carling nominated my
daughter Sandra Sloan who was four years old at the time and was with me at
the meeting to the New York State Committee. When Mark Axinn asked his to
withdraw his nomination of a four-year-old child, M Carling refused, saying
it was within the rules. I thought this was a cute and harmless gesture at
the time.
At the 2010 Annual Convention of the New York Libertarian Party, the same
meeting where the disastrous nomination of Warren Redlich for Governor took
place, M Carling and I were both nominated to the state committee. The
result of the vote was a tie between me and M Caring for last place. As I
was already on the state committee by being the Queens Libertarian Party
representative on the State Committee, it was agreed to give the slot to M
Carling to avoid a tie-breaking vote.
Meetings of the New York State Committee are handled by telephone
conference call. (California has not started doing this yet, perhaps for
reasons related to what happened in New York.) During an online telephone
conference call during the petitioning period when we were discussing
finding volunteers to help circulate petitions to get the Libertarian slate
including Redlich on the ballot, two members broke into the middle of the
meeting although they had not signed into the meeting before and made a
verbal motion to expel Tom Stevens from the Libertarian Party. Mark Axinn
who was chairing the meeting said that such a motion could not be made with
notice. The two moving parties said that they had just sent the notice by
email. We all checked our email boxes and no such notice had arrived.
However, a minute or two later such a notice did arrive in our email boxes
as it had just been sent.
This was obviously a violation of Roberts Rules of Order because Roberts
says that such a motion requires notice and the notice must come at the
time of the announcement of the time of meeting. Thus a notice sent while
the meeting has already started and is taking place is invalid.
Nevertheless, Mark Axinn allowed a vote on the motion to expel Tom Stevens
to take place and Tom Stevens was expelled.
Then M Carling who was also present on the telephone call because he had
been elected after a tie-vote with me, made a motion to expel me for the
New York Libertarian Party. This motion was quickly made and passed too,
this time without any notice at all, unlike the email notices sent in the
case of Tom Stevens. The same people who voted to expel me were much the
same as the group who had joined in the middle of the telephone meeting to
expel Tim Stevens although Don Silberger made an impassioned plea in my
favor.
Then somebody brought up the fact that Tom Stevens is supported by John
Procida, founder and Chairman of the Queens Libertarian Party, the oldest
Libertarian Party in New York State. So, somebody made a motion to expel
John Procida too. This time, Mark Axinn said that as John Procida is not a
member of the New York State Libertarian Party he cannot be expelled. Then
somebody made a motion “to investigate John Procida”. Mark Axinn said that
in that case a committee should be appointed to conduct this investigation.
Mark Axinn said that at least one member of the Queens Libertarian Party
should be on this committee to investigate its chairman and suggested that
John Clifton be appointed to this committee.
John Clifton was not on this telephone conference call so he could not
object. The motion passed and this committee was created which included
John Clifton to investigate John Procida.
When John Clifton found out about this he refused to be a member of this
committee. When John Procida found out about this he resigned all positions
with the Libertarian Party. In addition John Procida had been the principal
financial contributor to the Queens Libertarian Party. He substantially
stopped all financial contributions to the party after this.
It should be noted that all of this orgy of expelling Libertarian Party
members or investigating a financial contributor to the Libertarian party
took place while Mark Axinn was Chairman and M Carling was voting member
and voting in favor of these expulsions and investigations.
No minutes of these online telephone call meetings has ever been produced
and no record was made. I contend that these expulsions and investigations
are null and void and without legal effect.
At the 2014 Libertarian Party National Convention in Columbus Ohio I
attended but Mark Axinn stopped me from being seated as a New York
delegate. I realized that my dues as a member of the California Libertarian
party might be delinquent so I gave a check for $25 for the dues to Kevin
Takenaga, the chairman of California at the time.
Just as I was talking to Kevin Takenaga, M Carling came up and said he
wanted to discuss something with Kevin in private. So, he went off to
discuss this with Kevin. I am quite certain that M. Carling wanted to say
something negative about me, especially since after Kevin came back he
offered to return my California Libertarian Party dues check for $25 I had
just given him.
I declined his offer for the return of the check. To his credit Kevin
Takenaga did deposit the check, although after some delay.
For the aforementioned Convention of the California Libertarian Party on
April 2-3, 2016, I made sure my dues were up to date for both the San
Francisco Libertarian Party and the California State Libertarian Party
before the long trip to Los Angeles for the meeting to make sure there was
no controversy about this there.
At that meeting, I observed M Carling going up to Ted Brown, Chairman of
the Libertarian Party of California, and saying something about me. I asked
him what M Carling had said. He said that M Carling had said I had been
expelled from the New York Libertarian Party for causing trouble there. M
Carling had not explained that it had been M Carling himself who had made
the motion to expel me.
I need to explain that at no time has anybody offered any explanation or
reason for me being expelled. Blay Tarnoff, who is chairman of the by-laws
committee of the New York Libertarian Party and who attended all of these
online meetings, has stated that I was never expelled from the New York
Libertarian Party. It is only Mark Axinn who keeps saying this. Almost all
of the other members who were present at that online telephone meeting have
since left the Libertarian Party and have gone elsewhere.
With meetings of the state and national Libertarian Parties about to take
place I think we all should watch and be on the lookout for M Carling and
the havoc he will try to wreck if and when he arrives.
Sam Sloan